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The man in charge of the Alan Higgs Centre has said CCFC have made it clear they planned to leave the Academy base in the ‘medium to long term’ prior to the site changing ownership this year.

Paul Breed, chief executive of Coventry Sports Foundation (CSF) which manages the Higgs Centre, made the claim in an email to Wasps chief executive David Armstrong in response to an objection from the football club over plans to redevelop the Allard Way venue.

The email has appeared on Coventry Council’s planning portal as a relevant consultation response.

Mr Breed said he contacted the club over the future of Coventry City’s Academy at the Alan Higgs Centre prior to Coventry and Warwickshire Award Trust taking over site ownership from the Alan Higgs Centre Trust in March 2016.

His letter reads: “Prior to acquiring the site of the Alan Higgs Centre the very first consultation that I undertook was with the senior management of CCFC, to clarify their intentions going forward, given that the expiry date of their use agreements at the Alan Higgs Centre was set to be June 2017.

“It was made absolutely clear to me within this meeting that the ‘medium to long term intentions of the club’ were that they intended to establish their own facility to include playing, training and academy facilities all within the confines of an alternative and bespoke site. Such intentions are a matter of extensive public record.

“It was made absolutely clear by CSF within the context of this meeting that, given the nature and expense of maintaining such specialist pitch training facilities, CSF would have to seek to explore alternative partnerships to sustain the facilities going forward.

“This position was openly acknowledged and accepted by the senior management representation of CCFC, albeit that CSF always offered assurances to make any future transition as ‘seamless as possible’.

“To this end, CSF explored the partnership with Wasps, but you will recall that, within the body of our negotiating discussions, I was always clear that any future plans should be shaped around a commitment to ensure that CCFC should be accommodated on the site, until such a time as their existing agreement for use expired at the end of June 2017.

“My insistence upon this, to which Wasps have absolutely complied, was to ensure that CSF honoured the assurance to CCFC to make any transition as seamless as possible.”

He added that Wasps would help pay to relocate the ‘match pitch’ used by the Academy to ensure that the club could continue to use the site until its existing agreement expired in June 2017.

He said: “To that end, agreement was reached whereby Wasps would contribute financially to the relocation of the existing CCFC Academy Match Pitch for the forthcoming season to ensure that there was continuity of provision to the conclusion of the existing use agreement in June 2017.”

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Coventry City have denied that they intended to leave the Higgs Centre, instead claiming "the only consultation that ever took place with the football club was over the best ways to partner beyond 2017 and never about CCFC's Academy moving out."

They also deny insisting on an end date of June 2017 for their user agreement, which they say has "no basis in fact".

In recent months CCFC have publicly indicated that they would now possibly like to relocate their first team and Academy to the Higgs Centre.

Mr Breed added that CCFC’s suggestion that Wasps’ plans for a £7million training centre on the site would result “in the loss of a site used for sport” was “clearly not the case and is an evident misrepresentation of the development proposals.”

Earlier this week the Telegraph revealed that talks over whether the football Academy could continue to operate at the Higgs Centre if Wasps plans are given the go-ahead have broken down. CCFC pulled out of a scheduled meeting and then a public demand was made by the club that CSF should put in writing how the Academy could remain at the venue and retain its existing ‘category two’ standard.

CSF bosses have said they are not willing to do this and that face to face talks would be the most rational way of exploring options.

In the letter Mr Breed writes: “In relation to whether the CCFC Academy usage demands could be satisfied on the site in addition to the proposed Wasps use, this should be the subject of some further programming discussion and constructive dialogue between CSF, Wasps and CCFC.

“As you know, I have been going to some extremes to facilitate such dialogue, only to be continually rejected in such endeavours by CCFC.”

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The Football Association has also written to Coventry City Council’s planning committee who will decide on Wasps’ application during a public meeting at 2pm today.

The letter, from regional facilities manager Lee Rider, says: “There has not been sufficient information supplied to date which has meant that The FA have been unable to provide a formal response on the impact from this development.”

It is a similar response to Sport England who also failed to offer a view citing a lack of information.

They added that all parties involved should investigate the co-location of Wasps and the CCFC Academy at the Higgs Centre “in order to determine what activity could take place at the Alan Higgs Centre and determine what, if any, sporting activity would be displaced should the proposal be implemented.

“This information would then help to inform whether or not alternative sites would be required to maintain the sporting activity currently taking place at the Alan Higgs Centre and would also help to determine the impact on any displaced sporting activity.”

Council planning officers have recommended that Wasps’ application is rubber stamped today citing no material planning reasons for it to be turned down. CCFC insist the fact Sport England, as a statuary consultee, haven’t been able to reach a conclusion is material and a football club board member will speak at today’s meeting.

Councillors on planning committees are legally bound to make decisions based on planning guidelines alone. A legal challenge could follow if the decision is later disputed on the basis of planning law.